roadrunnertwice | BLOOD EVERYWHERE

So what have we learned tonight? Let's count it off:

Don't start fires in the kitchen. Bad scene.
If you finish one pie and decide to use the broiler to bring the stone back up to baking temp in a hurry, you will likely end up with more baking stones than you started with.
The hideous algebra I did for Robert several weeks ago actually worked! Well, he told me so afterwards anyway, but it's nice to have independent verification. Just for the record:
- 100% flour
- 40% poolish or wet sourdough starter
- 2.2% salt
- 0.49% instant yeast or 0.64% active dry yeast
- 5% oil
- 62.8% water
I don't quite have Time Control on this yet, but I did a 2 hour bulk ferment and a 1-to-1.25 hour proof (throwing everything not in pie one in the fridge after about 30 or 40 minutes), and it seemed to result in pizza dough. DO make sure you do a 20m autolyse period before mixing it in earnest.
Predict the future: put the smoke detector in the fridge before you even start pre-heating.
Dry mozzarella log seems to work a bit better than the wet-type balls. Apizza Scholllllls uses wet and it's unbelievably wonderful, but they also have more skillllllls than me, so they can get away with making things harder on themselves.
SPEED SPEED SPEED. Form the dough on rock or linoleum, transfer it to lightly floured wood, and GET THAT CRAP ON THERE AS FAST AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN. I am not kidding about this, lollygagging means inevitable catastrophe, a dodgy pie, and probably a small fire.
Get a real peel spatula, asshole. Jegus, what were you even thinking.
Racks works! Keeps the middle from getting soggy.

In conclusion: PIZZA NIGHT, DRACULA!

Pizza pie

Hot damn, man, nice work. Too bad about the pizza stone, hope it was worth it. I had the great fortune to be in Apizza Scholls once while some pizza makers from San Francisco were in the house and I got to hear the owner discuss crust science for half an hour. It didn't make a lick of sense to me, but neat all the same.

-- former co-worker Ryan

Well I learned shit, got fed, and only broke things that are replaceable and will probably work just fine while broken, so I think it's basically a win. And pie 3 of 3 was pretty fuckin' killer. (Do not ask any of us about those first two.)

If you had been carrying a tape recorder that night, you and me would be cutting an extremely shady deal right now. Also, do you do the Social Journaling Bullshit thing? Do you want a Dreamwidth invite? I'm sending you a Dreamwidth invite. *click*

In your time between pizza stones, may I recommend using a +16" cast iron pan for deep dish style? Coat the inside with olive oil and cornmeal and proceed with pizza building.

(The only drawback is that I have no wrist strength to skillfully manipulate a +16" cast iron pan at the best of times.)

Yeah, Schwern suggested that too. I don't think I'm down for the deep-dish thing, though.

(It is a good thought! I keep meaning to do something interesting involving the cast iron and the oven together, but haven't settled on anything yet.)

Well, just because it's ideal for deep dish doesn't mean you have to make deep dish style. I've made some perfectly fine thinner crust pizzas, and on average my pizzas aren't that much thicker than the one pictured above. The high walls of a cast iron pan will support a taller crust—I keep meaning to experiment with some good quality mozzarella to see if I can make an improved stuffed crust pizza—and the olive oil+hot iron ensures a crust that is GB&D*.

(Which is nice because the majority of pizza places now put chili pepper in their sauce so I can't order pizza anymore without risking poisoning. Now, I make it better than pizzarias. Take that you bastards.)

Ironically, the best pizza crust I ever had was when my yeast failed to rise and I rolled it out wafer-thin on cookie sheets with some olive oil and sea salt. Toast it up later with some toppings and it was the best pizza I've had since Rome.

*Golden Brown & Delicious

1. Looks like you need a rolling pin. Forget the stuff you see in a pizzeria. Those guys are pros and deal with dough that has been kneaded by an industrial mixer, plus often leave the dough batches to dry in a draft free place for a few hours, so of course it's easy to stretch by hand from there. The only way to get even dough with little prep (read... little or no resting time) is to roll it out with a pin.
2. Pre-bake the shell by itself. Put it on a pizza rack and bake it for 1 minute or 2 by itself before taking it out (leave the oven on and close it while you top the pizza, so you don't lose heat) and putting toppings on it. That step will harden the crust enough where even fresh mozzarella will have to work to break through the hardened layer.
3. The moisture factor: if you use fresh mozzarella, you don't need to smother a pie in sauce. In fact, the less sauce you put together with fresh mozzarella, the better the resulting pie. If you happen to love sauce, and are not so enthused with fresh mozzarella, then either low moisture logs or another semisoft cheese works well. Try fontina or gruyere if you want to go fancy (and hey, while cheddar is not kosher in many pizzas, it works with them too). That said the rule of thumb my mom had for pizza was 2 tablespoons of sauce, spread thinly to cover a whole 10 inch pie (she is a fresh mozzarella fan, in case you were wondering).

Oh hmm. I hadn't even thought about mozz liquid acting as a sauce component. That's a helpful clue.

I'm not actually worried about evenness. My dough was ending up pretty close to as even as I cared it to be with stretching by hand; the really bad deformations happened in the process of moving it from breadboard to baking stone, and probably would have happened even if I'd used a stiffer dough and a rolling pin. Once I have better control of the peel, maybe I'll re-evaluate the dough-shaping stage.

BLOOD EVERYWHERE

White hot

Re: White hot

Caveat: deep dish style does not appeal to everyone

Re: Caveat: deep dish style does not appeal to everyone

I have no foodie icon; clearly this is an oversight on my part.

Pizza Primer

Re: Pizza Primer